102 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Ene 



culties. Very often the little traitor has ruined the enterprise 

 which authority could not crush. Very often man finds his 

 worst enemies amongst the smallest creatures. Very often the 

 greatest creatures, having braved even man, succumb to little 

 enemies which appear contemptible. Thus the whale, that 

 giant of the sea, finds the narwhal a worse enemy than man. 

 It may escape the lord of creation, his fleets and harpoons ; 

 but these narwhals, assembling in a troop, advance in line of 

 battle against the whale, attack it on all sides, bite it, harass it, 

 fatigue it, force it to open its mouth, and then devour its tongue. 

 The wounded whale, then losing a quantity of blood, is worn 

 out and becomes the easy prey of white bears, dog-fish, and 

 like enemies whom it could before defy. The leviathan is 

 vanquished by insignificant fishes. Little enemies look out for 

 weak places. They always know the value of the tongue, and 

 have brought down many a strong personage by a strategious 

 method of attack having that for the object. M. 



Our own Peculiar Enemies. 



Even different sorts of animals seem to have allotted to them 

 their own peculiar enemies. One of the causes which render 

 the centre of Africa difficult to be explored is a fly not larger 

 than the house-fly. The Tsetse fly is of brown colour, with a 

 few transverse yellow stripes across the abdomen, and with 

 wings longer than its body. It is not dangerous to man, to 

 any wild animals, or to the pig, the mule, the ass, or the 

 goat. But it stings mortally the ox, the horse, the sheep, and 

 the dog, and renders the countries of Central Africa uninhabit- 

 able for those valuable animals. It seems to possess very sharp 

 sight. It darts from the top of a bush as quick as an arrow 

 on the object it wishes to attack. This sucker of blood secretes 

 yin a gland, placed at the base of his trunk, so subtle a poison 

 /that three or four flies are sufficient to kill an ox. Men all 

 the world over are subject to some sort of moral Tsetse fly. 

 The tormentor seems specially adapted for injury to the par- 

 ticular persons whom it attacks, and it passes over others. The 

 Tsetse wife, Tsetse mother-in-law, Tsetse inquisitor, are all 

 \creatures who have a mission to sting to death the various 



